Motion is a fundamental truth at every scale to every flavor of observer. The universe dances alone within us and through us. From the charm quarks and the strange quarks all the way up to the quasar-devouring supermassive black holes and all manner of manatees in between, Nature abides nary a wallflower. So as soon as awareness finds its seat in the well of being at heart center of a new body, a move is made. Being becomes its ever-evolving self yet again.
One can conceive of an infinitesimal cosmic tick, the so-called Planck unit of time, which contains the most minuscule observable alteration. Just one bit flipped in the endless tapestry of information. And letting the model extrapolate, allowing bit flips (a.k.a. choices) to cascade and propagate, one can model the realms of being in ten dimensions.
As actor-observers participating in this grand drama, we know little for certain. We pay attention and notice the state of being evolving. We intend a change and events unfold, sometimes reforming the state of being according to our intentions. Meanwhile we witness countless other events we have not intended, giving the distinct impression that the game is afoot and multiplayer.
The wind blows through the leaves of the gingko biloba tree standing nobly in our backyard. Who intended this playful flutter, this cool caress? Many models of the world we encounter assume the primacy of humanity. We euphemize them as anthropocentric, as human-centered, but often they go much further, excluding the possibility that any non-human beings could possess even our most rudimentary faculties.
Dogs have an excellent sense of time, may even read our minds. Trees send each other aid and gifts via the mycelium network. Dolphins frolic and fellate, and octopi MacGyver.
The pepper plant in my garden stretches toward the sun, seemingly with joy and in gratitude. Could it be so? If we can interface with the mycelium in the soil, we may discover a biotic internet of trillions and trillions of conscious beings attending and intending to form the forest.
Stargazing as I lay upon an enormous boulder in Sequoia National Park after a long hot August day along the Big Arroyo, I could feel the stone offer its stored heat to me and receive my body heat in kind, as gracious and grateful for my presence as I was of its. Could it be so? As the moon rises from the horizon, its glow blinds me as it basks in the hidden sun's shine.
gurdjieff tells us that the moon feeds upon the souls of earthly denizens, fueling her evolution. The Earth grows us for this purpose, and only a select few terran lifeforms become aware of their unconscious plight and still fewer achieve the sovereignty necessary to defy the Moon, salacious and drooling. The Moon shows us only her face, never her back, so intent is she on consuming those who give up the ghost. Her insistent tango about the waist of fertile, abiding Gaia tugs our seas into swells and churns our skies into squalls.
Bone-propped meat balloons such as we are, we comprise mostly water (99% by molecule, 55-75% by mass), so suffice it to say we feel the Moon's pull as though we embody the seas themselves. With enough force to hoist the very oceans three meters closer on the near side of the globe, the Moon isn't subtle. And the Earth at 81 times more massive exerts a profound draw on the Moon's dusty pockmarked face, a force of attraction so intense in fact that the Moon can't look away, but lolls transfixed and hypnotized in quad-weekly rings around Earth's scintillating blue-green skin.
Shrouded within every dancer, we find the beat: the sticks of the marionette metered to our hearts pounding and breaths sucking, to the wind blowing in the sky twirling, to the Moon swooping, the Sun soaring, and the stars trawling.
Life experiences motion, I hope we can agree. Life moves, often under its own volition. These voluntary movements follow the beat of our body, of our world, from a lizard's pulsing pushups on a sun-drenched stone to a moonflower's pungent nightly blossom. Tempting though it may be to ignore the intent of nonlinguistic lifeforms, I urge you to attempt a risky inversion. Instead, let us look everywhere for intention. The beat goes on seemingly without a drummer, but the steps don't dance themselves. Even the swooping Moon, in its enormity and sleepy regularity, with eyes that blink each millennium could be seen to quiver and wiggle in response to the Earth and the Sun in their waltz about the galaxy.
Digressions indulged, we come to the point. Why do we move? Why does everything wiggle and dance? Could it be that the a program executes the dance, each of its steps a discrete command carried out? If we select our steps but follow the beat, do we dare conceive of ourselves as the only willing dancers? Do we dare defy the beat? We can feel the flow as pressure when we resist it, and as easy release when we join it. By attending to our flow states, by noticing what steps fit the beat and which trip us up, we can begin to glean the drummer's motive.
I notice, and the seething roaring masses of seers and teachers of being through the ages corroborate, that we flow when we move with love and without minding. The guru sits gazing upon all sides of a universe dancing to the one true love song. And when, instead of love guiding us, fear pulls our strings, pain pings us to return to the beat. While what is makes grandiose overtures of love to what could be, though every sunrise and every sunset offer us a watercolor spectacle, and despite a worldwide (and sadly dwindling) chorus of birds tweeting about the beauty of being, fear often cottons our ears to the music, fear shuts our eyes to the Whys behind our Is. Fleet though we run, we run to or from. Love is slow, love is patient, love is kind. Love waits, knows face
As ones who aspire to move consciously with noble intent, we can ask before, after, and during any act, "Do I move to love or from fear?"